Alison Wolf decided to be bold. The eminent economist had been charged with “fixing” vocational education. She could have tinkered. She could have tweaked. But instead she took a circular saw to England’s technical qualifications and a trowel and mortar to the policies around them, in the hope that, finally, they would be given parity with academic routes. The near-200 pages of the 2011 Wolf report demanded significant change.

The initial signs that her advice would be heeded and a rehabilitation of technical routes in the eyes of ministers, teachers, parents and students would occur were good. Michael Gove, the education secretary at the time, called it “brilliant and groundbreaking”.

And, since then, much of what Wolf suggested has been put into practice.

Between 2004 and 2010, the number of teenagers taking vocational courses deemed to be equivalent to GCSEs rocketed from 15,000 to 575,000. Many of these were seen by some as “soft” options, through which it was easy for schools to rise up the league tables. Wolf brought this trend to an abrupt end, with thousands of low-level vocational qualifications stripped out of performance tables in what became a key plank of Gove’s drive to bring rigour back into education.

Another result of the Wolf report was the requirement that students who failed to achieve a GCSE grade C in English or maths should be required to retake the subject.

The consequences have been profound: there were more than 300,000 entries from 17-plus in the two subjects this summer, up a third from 2015.

You can trace the origins of apprenticeship reform back to the Wolf report; also, the scrapping of the much-derided Qualifications and Credit Framework, as well as colleges being given permission to recruit 14- and 15-year-old students.

Since the publication of her report, Wolf’s reputation has gone from strength to strength. In 2014, she joined the House of Lords and became Baroness Wolf of Dulwich. And her influence over education policy has continued. In 2015, she penned a report calling for the creation of an apprenticeship levy on businesses; a week later, it became government policy.

The near-200 pages of the report demanded significant change

Then, this summer, Wolf returned to the fore as one of the members of the Independent Panel on Technical Education. The resulting report, widely known as the Sainsbury review, sets out what the government described as the biggest change to post-16 education since the introduction of A levels some 70 years ago.

Under the plans - adopted in full by the government - students at 16 will choose whether to take an academic or technical pathway. Those who opt for one of the 15 proposed technical routes will be able to choose either a two-year college-based course or an apprenticeship.

The plans can be seen as Wolf applying the finishing touches to the agenda she set out five years ago - and a move designed to finally see her aim of parity between vocational and academic education come to fruition.

But problems remain, and they are problems Wolf admits prevent that aim from becoming reality. Writing exclusively for TES, she explains what has been achieved since her first report - and the challenges that lie ahead. And, across the following pages, key voices in the schools and FE sectors give their own views on her legacy.

Alison Wolf

‘Have we seen progress? Yes, but it is a highly qualified yes’

In 2011, one year after the coalition government took power, I delivered a review of vocational education to Michael Gove, who was then education secretary. Most of its recommendations were implemented.

Earlier this year, almost exactly five years on from that review, I was one of Lord Sainsbury’s Independent Panel on Technical Education, delivering another report. This time we made recommendations to overhaul post-16 technical education, which were accepted by the government.

So, after two major government reports on technical and vocational education in just five years, is this a sign of steady progress in improving the education of 17- and 18-year olds, and especially the non-university bound majority? My answer is yes; after years of waiting, we are finally making progress - but it is a highly qualified yes.

I believe that all 14- and 15-year-olds should have a good, broad general education and I think that we are closer to that today than we were pre-2011. I’m also delighted that “fat” and “thin” timetables have vanished from our colleges, with all 16- and 17-year-olds receiving a full study programme.

We’re also now in a world where education to 18 is the norm. That means that 18-year-olds - all 18-year-olds - need to take qualifications that are reputable and well known. It is a core duty of a government to develop and maintain a national qualification system - and not just on the academic side.

There are signs that this message has finally been understood.

There’s steady progress elsewhere, too. For decades, governments failed to create a national system for anything other than GCSEs and A levels. Its active encouragement of ever-more competing awarding bodies for technical routes, which couldn’t possibly become well known to, or respected by, employers - and which operated in a system that drove down the quality of such routes - was grossly irresponsible.

In 2011, I hoped that, within a new regulatory framework, we would find some clear specialisation, along with innovation and higher standards, emerging from our major awarding bodies: the organic development of a national system of technical awards. This was probably always highly optimistic, and in the last few years it simply hasn’t happened.

That is why the Sainsbury review is so important and it is here where I think we can afford some hope. It breaks with other recent reforms in working with, not against, awarding bodies. This is not a call for yet another set of centrally designed, complex and undeliverable qualifications courtesy of a new quango. But it recognises that we need a national system of qualifications, which must include technical as well as academic options: quality-assured by the government, simple to understand, simple to recognise and stable over time.

It therefore recommends one qualification per technical route, which would be developed, under licence, by an awarding body that knows how to assess and award.

This would be a significant step in the right direction. If the government follows through on its acceptance of that core recommendation, then we can finally offer a proper alternative to A levels - one that has its own rationale and prestige. It would ensure schools can understand and better recommend the technical options and that those students who wish to study these qualifications can do so.

A fundamental part of what I wanted to see would finally be reality.

HE still wins the cash

There’s bad news to go with this positive analysis. Modern governments are always strapped for cash, and in the behind-the-scenes dog fights, higher education wins over further education again and again. This isn’t just because of the university lobby, or just because everyone involved is a university graduate. It is primarily because of the blind faith of modern governments, and especially our own, in the power of a degree to turn someone into a highly skilled, high-earning individual who will add to national income. The more graduates, the richer, supposedly, we all are.

Because of this belief, successive governments have spent more and more on universities. The number of students in UK universities has increased more than twentyfold since the 1960s. Today, much of the financial burden has been shifted, in theory, to students, through £9,000-a-year student loans. But, in fact, a large part of those loans will never be repaid and exist as a charge on the central budget.

The cracks in the argument for this funding are starting to show, but current policy - encapsulated in the new Higher Education and Research Bill - is still to increase the number of universities and the number of university students, and to make it even easier to expand the sector than it was in the past. This would mean pressure on other budgets including, obviously, 16-19 and adult education.

Apprenticeships: the truth

You may ask, what about the high-profile commitment to apprenticeships? Here, a combination of numerical targets, bad policies and financial stringency has meant that the bulk of apprenticeship spending has been on short, low-level, cheap options, mostly for adults. In real terms, spending per apprentice has been less than a quarter of what is spent per student in higher education.

Moving from poor to good apprenticeships requires both higher average spending and good, high-quality off-the-job training; it’s not clear that anyone in government has really engaged with how that will, or won’t, happen.

You find a similar issue if you look at FE as a whole. Those in the sector - rightly - saw it as a victory when adult spending wasn’t cut further last year, but it is still only set to flatline. Equally seriously, 16-18 full-time education continues to be funded at a lower rate than lower levels of secondary schooling.

In this we are, as far as I know, unique in the developed world. It makes no sense whatsoever, given the demands of an increasingly specialised curriculum. It is doubly bad for anyone - such as an FE or sixth-form college - dealing with an expensive technical curriculum and that needs to hire in shortage areas (engineering, maths, construction), and can’t cross-subsidise from younger cohorts.

If technical or vocational education is constantly starved compared with academic tracks, why would students choose it? The general public and politicians aren’t really aware of the gap; the sector needs to highlight and complain about it, loudly and often.

If the government does bring in the recommendations of the Sainsbury review, then we can focus on the key challenges, which are as important now as they were five years ago: FE needs fairer funding, now.

As a nation, we also need a proper, higher technical route post-18 to complete a full, genuine alternative to A levels and university.

Baroness Wolf of Dulwich is a cross-bench peer and the Sir Roy Griffiths professor of public sector management at King’s College London

The school leader’s view

‘I worry technical qualifications have lost their uniqueness and have become a trudge through endless written papers’

Nigel Matthias, deputy head at Bay House School in Hampshire, which offers every key stage 4 student the option of vocational qualifications, writes:

There is no doubt that aspects of the Wolf report have been a success. The quality of vocational courses has risen dramatically and this has given us the opportunity to use our options process to guide young people towards the most valuable vocational qualifications pre-16.

However, not all of Wolf’s intended outcomes have been realised. While we envisaged a stronger brand for the unique provision of high-quality technical and vocational qualifications, in some respects academic and vocational provision has become more homogenised. The increasing importance of the examination component of vocational qualifications has meant that the more traditional aspects of GCSE preparation - mock examinations, question level analysis, revision sessions - have shifted across to vocational courses.

I worry that the assessment styles unique to vocational courses are being lost and replaced with a trudge through endless written papers in the hall.

One of the key recommendations of the Wolf report was also that programmes for the lowest-attaining learners should concentrate on the core academic skills of English and maths, and on work experience. However, if anything, the government’s Progress 8 measure has made this more, rather than less, challenging.

If performance measures were, as Wolf intended, truly to “promote a focus” on these areas rather than an “accrual of qualifications”, then the whole system needs yet another overhaul.

The college principal’s view

‘If that investment is not there, I fear we may well end up another five years down the line, no further ahead on parity for technical education’

Dame Asha Khemka, principal and chief executive of West Nottinghamshire College, writes:

For too long, we have paid lip service to parity of esteem between academic and technical routes.

The Wolf report and, more recently, the Sainsbury review, may well have started us on the road to true parity by firstly removing ‘low value’ vocational qualifications pre-16 and latterly making technical education as simple to understand as A levels and degrees post-16.

Our long-held faith in higher education to be the panacea to all our skills and competitive ills may be wavering. Employers themselves are eager and ready to embrace alternatives through higher-level and degree apprenticeships with appropriate stepping stones at lower levels.

The government has made clear that it supports the recommendations of the Sainsbury review “where that is possible within existing budgets”.

Change that delivers impact requires investment and, if that investment is not there, I fear we may well end up another five years down the line lamenting the fact that technical education is still not on an equal footing to academic.

Change that delivers impact also relies on stability, something that I’m afraid is sadly lacking within the world of further education.

The Sainsbury recommendations are a British version of a European model that works so well in countries like Germany. It works because it is deeply ingrained in German culture. That kind of cultural shift does not happen overnight; it will take time, but it will only be achieved if we first simplify and then have the strength to maintain that system, and not give in to perpetual reform.

The academic’s view

‘There is still much work required in order to ensure that technical and professional education is accorded the resources and the respect that it merits’

Martin Doel, professor of leadership in FE and skills at the Institute of Education, University College London, writes:

When asked in 1972 about the effects of the French Revolution, Zhou Enlai, then Chinese premier, apocryphally said it was “too early to tell”. Evaluating education reforms probably requires less than 200 years, but it is too early to fully evaluate the effects of the Wolf report.

It is, however, significant that the recent Sainsbury review built upon distinct foundations established in Alison Wolf’s report; Lord Sainsbury also most sensibly established a reasonable timeframe for his panel’s recommendations.

Why is this important? Because vocational education and training has been the plaything of successive ministers indulging half-thought-through policies that are jettisoned at the first setback, or on a change of administration. This state of affairs is in contrast to the evolution of policy in highly regarded systems like Germany and Finland; strong fundamentals have been established and built upon, garnering political consensus and parental buy-in along the way.

So what are the fundamentals that the Wolf report established? All students, whether following academic or vocational studies, deserve a rounded programme of study and funding across both types should be founded on an equitable per-student funding basis. Furthermore, delivering vocational programmes requires particular teaching competences, and employers must be involved in determining the content of study in a much more intimate and continuous way.

The Sainsbury review offers the prospect of an English dual system. But, as Baroness Wolf herself acknowledges, there is still much work required to ensure that technical and professional education is accorded the resources and the respect that it merits.

The politician’s view

‘The route into apprenticeships is opaque, difficult and uninformed. It badly needs attention’

Sir Vince Cable, former secretary of state for business, innovation and skills between 2010 and 2015, writes:

Alison Wolf’s 2011 report on vocational education in schools is unusual not just for the quality of the analysis but for having been followed up and - almost - fully implemented by the government.

She will no doubt have been pleased that the big divide between vocational training and FE on the one hand (over which I presided in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills) and schools (the Department for Education) has been bridged in the recent machinery of government changes, which brought all educational routes within the DfE. One of her central criticisms was that the system paid insufficient attention to the formative academic disciplines of English and maths in vocational education and gave too much weight to narrowly vocational subjects.

She has attracted substantial consensus. I share it - with some reservations. For some low-attaining pupils, the academic hurdle is severe and in some cases prohibitive. Imaginatively taught, English and maths should be accessible to everyone but, for some, blessed with manual dexterity, emotional intelligence or creativity, unimaginative academic requirements are purgatory and a recipe for personal failure.

That is why I insisted that, while these academic qualifications are part of apprenticeship requirements, they should not be an absolute bar to progression. It is also why I am such a fan of university technical colleges, which are able to blend the academic and vocational so well.

Wolf sees a central role for work placements, and I agree. I think she perhaps underestimates the importance of schools’ careers advice and guidance which, I am afraid, our coalition government badly damaged. For those doing academic subjects, the Ucas process is clear and graduate teachers know the ropes. My department did a lot to promote and improve apprenticeships. But the route into apprenticeships is opaque, difficult and uninformed. It badly needs attention.

The FE sector view

‘We are still too far away from a comprehensive and coherent skills strategy that works for everyone’

David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, writes:

Alison Wolf is right that some positive progress has been made since her report in 2011 and also that the Skills Plan, if fully implemented, will take us further forwards. But we will still be too far away from a comprehensive and coherent skills strategy that works for everyone - all ages, all stages and academic, general, technical, vocational and even recreational.

The inconsistencies between policy on apprenticeships (in too many cases, narrow standards with little focus on progression for instance), and the Skills Plan (broad qualifications helping to develop skills for a career), alone highlight the need for clearer thinking and more coherence between policies.

For colleges, the agenda looks promising. The focus on technical and professional skills is welcome to a sector delivering the vast majority of HNCs and HNDs, and the Skills Plan’s 15 routes will have to be delivered principally through high-quality local colleges in every community.

The challenge for the new government is to recognise just how crucial this all is to our success as a nation after Brexit, particularly if it gets harder to bring skilled migrants in to fill gaps. That recognition then needs to be followed by a new partnership to deliver and the investment to support it.